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Rowdy crowds a Brazilian highlight of Rio Olympics: Arthur

Get a crowd of Brazilians at a venue, and the genteel, full-hearted, utopian Games spirit can take a hike, Bruce Arthur writes.

Brazilian fans make their sympathies clear at a handball match between Brazil and Poland during the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Aug. 7, 2016. With their exuberance at several venues, fans of the Brazilian Olympians have surprised athletes and officials, especially in sports and at moments in which silence is valued. (JAMES HILL / NYT)

RIO DE JANEIRO—Sunday night at the pool, and it felt like pro wrestling. Russian Yulia Efimova, a twice-convicted doping world champion? Boooooooo! Russian backstroker Evgeny Rylov, part of the tainted Russian delegation? Boooooooo! The Russian men’s relay team, in the climactic race of the night? Not only did they get booed like they were Argentines, but in the race’s final 50 metres, with the Brazilian team lagging, the cheering surged and crested and crashed onto the shore as the Aussies passed the Russians down the stretch for bronze. It was . . . what’s the word? . . . awesome.

Of all the ways these Games are Brazilian, the crowds are probably the best. Well, unless you’re at the venues with the empty seats. Or if you are interested in the genteel, full-hearted, utopian idea of the Olympic Spirit. But get a crowd of Brazilians in a room, and the genteel, full-hearted, utopian Olympic spirit can take a hike, pally.

“Brazilian fans are egalitarian; They seem to be able to boo athletes from many countries,” said IOC spokesman Mark Adams.

The public address announcers have tried to shush the Brazilians. They have tried it at the swimming. They have tried it at the table tennis. (Table tennis!) At beach volleyball, they asked Brazilians to cheer for everybody. (Boooooooo!)

Brazil is not a nation of many sports; they love soccer. Every crowd here is a soccer crowd. There were “Zika, Zika” chants at USA women’s soccer goaltender Hope Solo, and American beach volleyball players Lauren Fendrick and Brooke Sweat. (Solo had expressed reservations about coming due to the virus; Fendrick and Sweat, who work with rather more exposed skin, had not.) There were “Marta” chants at Brazil’s sadly impotent men’s soccer team, who have been booed extensively.

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It has gone too far, in places. There were homophobic chants at women’s soccer in Belo Horizonte, according to the Los Angeles Times. But even the acceptable enthusiasm, in the context of Olympic cheering, is something like chaos.

“Here, we have the culture to support Brazil, even when things are very difficult,” says Rio 2016 volunteer Luis Pedroza.

“We’re born with it,” says Djalma Peres Jr, of Rio, who is in his late 50s. “We are Latin. We are about the heart.”

There has been a lot of heart. Some athletes have not been prepared for the raucousness, but they’ll have to get used to it. Unpopular interim president Michel Temer was not introduced at the opening ceremony, allegedly because he feared being booed, and then when he formally declared the Games open, he got booed but good.

“Booing is kind of part of the football culture, which is that everything is very unilateral: my team or the team against me,” said organizing committee spokesman Mario Andrada. “Again, it’s part of the education that we need to have to help Brazilians to understand.

“One of the main legacies of these Games is the fact that Brazilian fans will all learn how to love and cheer for different sports. As you saw in the opening ceremony, the Brazilians are very passionate, very vocal, very loud, very Latin.

“We are helping Brazilians to understand the right moment and the right level of passion. But we’d rather have some passion than none and I think it’s a process of learning, it’s a learning curve, and they will be getting better and better as the days move on.”

Maybe. Or maybe Brazil already knows how to express passion, and has its own damned reasons. Anti-Temer chants and signs have resulted in ejections, which has been controversial here.

“Right now, all the corruption that is ongoing, we are tired about it,” says Bruno Martes, 34, a Rio-based captain of a ship used in oil drilling. “And we are using the World Cup and the Olympics Games to make noise and show everybody that we cannot stand this anymore. “

Luana Gaweia is a 22-year-old chemical engineering student at Uerj Engenharia University, where classes have been off since March because the university employees weren’t getting paid. She thinks people are tired of the problems outside the Games, and so are truly embracing them when they are inside.

“Yeah, this is one of the reasons that we are so happy to be the hosts of the Olympic Games, because we are suffering a lot with the politics, with the murders, with the robbers, and this is a happy moment for each Brazilian person,” says Bruno Mendes, 21, a Rio native studying civilian engineering.

“This make us very happy. You know your country is going through troubles, but in the game these troubles don’t come in. They stay outside of the gymnasium, the stadium. Just pride. You feel pride, you feel peace, you feel angry, sports-angry.”

Marcelo Duran, a Rio doctor attending handball with his wife and daughter, said he does not approve of the booing; that if Brazil wants to host the world, it should be positive. He is adamant on this.

Would you boo Argentina, he is asked?

“That’s a very good question,” he says.

The IOC can tut-tut, and competitors can get rattled. But Brazil’s crowds, when they show up, are visceral and thrilling. Ask Novak Djokovic. Ask the swimmers. Ask anybody. The greatness of the Olympics is how much it matters to the people involved. Brazil’s fans, when they show up, qualify.

“We have problems in Brazil,” says Pedroza, the volunteer. “But not here.”

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